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Thursday, 28 February 2013

I found an interesting tutorial for paper roses, made out of coffee filters. You can find it here..

http://www.emmalee-design.com/art-design/coffee-filter-rose-tutorial/

So, of course, I thought I should have a go.

I had some coffee filters already in the cupboard, and I bought some florist wire and tape from Hobbycraft.

Within the tutorial was a link for a petal template - click HERE to find it.

I couldn't be bothered to print it out, so I just took a guess and drew it from the screen shot.

When it came to colouring the rose, the suggestions were red wine, or beetroot juice. I did have a jar of pickled beetroots but well out of date, and when I opened the jar the baby beets looked like ugly brown muddy balls - nice! So, I wasn't going to use that.

I looked at the wine, but on that particular night I was giving my liver a rest. I knew if I opened the bottle I would drink it, so I opted for red wine vinegar instead. It didn't really have the desired effect, in fact it just made the rose look a bit brown, and the smell....... urgh!

I think it needs more petals to be honest, and the middle petals needed to be cut smaller as the formation is not as 'rose like' as it should. And it smells funny :)

Monday, 25 February 2013

Before I get loads and loads of praise - I DID NOT do these, but how I wish I did and that I could take credit for them.

Aren't they beautiful? I just had to share.

They were created for my daughter by the terribly talented Marie from "Nim & Num".

They started off plain red and Marie 'doodled' on them in her doodley style.

She is going to be offering them up for sale very soon - in various colours and sizes....the best bit being they will be totally personalised to suit the wearer, with names on the tongues if you so desire.

You can find them on her Facebook page, where you can also contact her if you fancy commissioning a pair.

Friday, 22 February 2013

I am getting a craft room (more on that soon), so I need to separate stuff I want to keep from stuff I need to sell.

The Shed is really my working space for my Bead Business and I am having a huge half price sale to get some stock shifted. It is a massive shed - more like a log cabin, measuring 16 x 20 feet, it had to be huge to get the contents of our shop inside when we closed it down, so as you can imagine it is pretty full of stuff in there.

I keep a lot of my beading books in there, I have too many (can you have too many books?) What you are about to see is just the beading, and jewellery related, books. The knitting, crochet, soap making, felting, baking and lots of other books are all in the house - scattered around various rooms. I can't wait to get them all together in one place.

Now, I am slightly ashamed to say, I barely look at these books.

How could I not, there are some beautiful books in there.

So, what I pledge to do, is every month (starting this month) pick a book of the shelf at random, read it, review it, and make something from it.

In shades of pinks and purples, this one is hopefully for throwing over the back of my sofas. One of the sofas is in front of the window, the cats love to sit there - people watching and sunbathing (sometimes!) Due to this it can be quite hairy and has faded considerable in the sun. Problem is, I will have to make two of this one - one for each sofa. I might change the design a little for the second though.

Her big brother is moving out into his own pad and she is moving into his room. Her girlfriend, Marie, is in the process of making her a HUGE canvas in her recognisable doodle art style so I thought I would do her a blanket to match. It is quite vibrant and cheerful.

I am struggling with the colour arrangement on this one though..... should I have swapped the blues over perhaps? Then swapped the purples, blending into the pinks..... Oh I dunno!

As each line takes 20 minutes to crochet and I would have to unpick 28 rows - that is 560 minutes, or 9.33 hours. Hmmmmmm, think I might leave it be.

I was a little excited to spot a "Pet Photo Competition" in my local paper. But on closer inspection it did turn out to be just that - a Pet PHOTO Competition. In other words, you take your pet along to one of the photographers on their list, pay a small admin fee, get them photographed, and the picture is entered into the competition.

Booo! I wanted to enter my own photograph. This one....

Dotty Dog is an excellent model (especially when she has spent the previous two hours padding up a Lake District Fell and is totally bushed) and last year I got some cracking photos of her - or, at least, I like them.

I use a Nikon Bridge camera Coolpix 8800, liberated from Daddy L's attic.

Daddy L is a photographer, before his retirement he had a shop that sold art-prints and photo frames, also offering a bespoke framing service - he had a workshop in the garage and in the olden days, a dark room in the garden! You can check out his photos on his Facebook page - Lawrence Graham Photography.

In my childhood I hated being dragged around the countryside every weekend to take photos (at one point all he wanted to do was find and photograph red barns!!) Now though, I can appreciate the attraction :)

This was the very first photograph I took with this camera. It is from my own strawberry bush, but it looks like someone (or something) got there first.

This next photo is one of my all time favourites, it was taken at one of the highest points on Hadrians Wall looking South.

I also love this one, I had to snap this quick to catch it all. Pity about the shadowing spoiling the effect. What I wanted to capture was the essence of Essaouira, Morocco The modern motorbike with one of the many stray cats that hover around the souks in Morocco, but just behind stands the little boy, so deep in thought while he collects water from the well in an old tatty bucket.

If you like, you can see some of more my attempts on my Facebook page - oddly named Photography By Sooz.